Something that WhatsApp has improved significantly over the years is in the process of transferring all content from one device to another, something common when we want to change our smartphone, but we are interested in keeping the history of conversations, sent and received files, groups and so on. And yes, I say improved because it was a real pain in the ass in its early days and also any failure, no matter how small, could cause that record to be lost, you know, like tears in the rain.

As I say, This has improved a lot over the years.and the ability to keep an updated backup in the cloud, Google Drive if we use Android or iCloud in the case of iOS, you can minimize losses in the event of failure of said transfer, which, on the other hand, is increasingly rare. At least in my immediate area, all migrations of this type that have been carried out in recent years have been successful.

However, the process has a weak point for a long time. It’s not a problem, but it’s an example of how to do things in the least optimal way possible. Imagine having your old smartphone in your left hand and your new one in your right hand, or both together on the table, just a few centimeters apart. Anyway, all the data is uploaded from the old one to the cloud and downloaded from there to the new one. Any fan of efficiency should be pulling their hair out while reading this article.

Wouldn’t it make more sense that if both devices are connected to the same local network, they would use the same one for this operation? The truth is, yes, and last April we learned that Meta is already working on it, at least for Android. And now we already have an official confirmation as it was published on the official account of the service On Twitter, WhatsApp already allows history to be transferred over the local network to new devices. And also, as we have already speculated, it should be, both in the case of Android and iOS.

In the same tweet, of course, it is stated these types of direct transfers can only be made between devices with the same operating system, i.e. from Android to Android or from iOS to iOS. Maybe it’s related to the security policies of both operating systems, or maybe it involves other difficulties due to technical aspects like the format in which the data is stored on the device. However, we understand that this type of change is minor compared to when users change devices but stay on the same platform.